PUBLIC HEALTH

access issues, especially for the most economically and socially vulnerable populations. How is YRG CARE addressing these access challenges?

Sunil Solomon: India’s infectious disease incidence effects are seen nationwide, but a greater and disproportionate burden is observed amongst certain vulnerable populations. One region that we work in, for instance, is New Delhi, as the city witnesses one of the highest HIV incidences in the people who inject drugs (PWID) population. We support screening for HIV in the region as well.

We aim to help people living with HIV and their families live with dignity. Our offerings include a wide range of services across outreach prevention, medical and counselling training, treatment, specialised clinics, anonymous testing for HIV/STIs, and more.

What have been the outcomes of the work conducted by the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition since its inception in 2021? How many viral threats have been tracked and contained?

Gavin Cloherty: The Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition is the first global scientific and public health partnership dedicated to the early detection of and rapid response to future pandemic threats. This has involved work done since 2021 to identify, track, analyse, and test emerging threats worldwide. The network involves 20 scientific and public health organisations across India, the United States, South Africa, Senegal, Thailand, Brazil, and more.

The work of this privatepublic partnership continually advances infectious disease research. We have published over 20 research papers and studies including research around the COVID-19 variants, antibody levels after COVID vaccines, the genetic diversity of the Picobirnavirus, and the spread of Hepatitis C in India.

We conduct viral surveillance and discovery and study a wide range of infectious diseases, from SARS-Cov-2 and its variants, HIV and Hepatitis to new and neglected diseases. For example, during the SARSCov-2 pandemic, our partner in South Africa quickly alerted us to the threat of Omicron, which helped us analyse the variant and confirm diagnostic tests could detect it. In Chicago, Abbott was one of the first to detect the delta variant in Illinois, following which we alerted the medical centre and Chicago Department of Public Health. We ensure that such information is shared with appropriate public health facilitators, so that the right preventive measures can be put in place.

What have been the learnings in terms of new age diagnostics and technologies needed to track, diagnose, and contain viral threats which emerge through such surveillance initiatives?

Gavin Cloherty: The Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition is an ‘eyes on the ground’ network, and our global surveillance, research, and testing efforts are helping us build a vast network that helps us keep an eye out for the next viral threat. This is especially important to stay one step ahead, including assessing whether existing tests detect such infections, or gathering information that can support quick test development.

This initiative has also shown us how building a public health and scientific network is extremely useful to stay up to date with evolving viruses worldwide and share findings that impact public health and help tackle viral threats.

One area we’ve seen advancements in technology is with metagenomics nextgeneration sequencing and its ability to revolutionise how viruses are discovered –creating a genome that once took years to complete can now be done in a day or two. At the same time, we need to have the foundation elements: the right samples to work from. This is why we’ve partnered to build capabilities around the world with fellowship programs within the Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Intervention Network, or TEPHINET. This network is already training epidemiologists in more than 100 countries. We must continue to build up our pipeline of scientists and infrastructure across the world to raise pandemic defenses everywhere.

Many of the most vulnerable countries and populations cannot afford new age diagnostics and technologies. The COVID pandemic has proved that pockets of infection with poor access to diagnostics and therapeutics can lead to waves of infections across countries. How does the Coalition work with access challenges? viveka.r@expressindia.com viveka.roy3@gmail.com

Gavin Cloherty: The COVID19 pandemic taught us that no one organisation, network or country is enough to effectively fight against viral pathogens. We must have an ongoing global commitment to pandemic preparedness –and key to that is collaboration across the private and public sectors for ongoing surveillance, early detection and a rapid response to emerging threats.

At Abbott, we have an ambition to help 1 in 3 people on the planet by 2030 and our work with the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition is part of that mission. We invest in and work closely with our public health partners – advancing infectious disease research and scientific sharing to address global and regional health challenges.

As part of the coalition, we provide our partners with equipment or instrumentation needed, including testing. This supports their on-the-ground efforts so they can help quickly rule out pathogens from certain diseases or flag viruses that have the potential to become an outbreak.